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Sink or swim: Why Miami is the ‘new Atlantis’

In a world where sea levels are rising, threatening lives and livelihoods, this Dutch expert’s advice is to ‘make friends with water.’ Why the world needs to listen to him.

Henk Ovink has a hard job: he is the Special Envoy for Water Affairs for the Netherlands, a country that is about 30 per cent below sea level and at constant risk of flooding.
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Henk Ovink constantly thinks about water — rather, the threat posed by rising sea levels to coastlines. When he talks about water, he’s part excited, part determined to make you understand water doesn’t have to be a threat, it can be an asset.

The water-management expert from the Netherlands should know. Thirty per cent of his country is below sea level, and would sit under the ocean were it not for centuries of effort by the Dutch in battling the sea, holding it back. No wonder, then, that a few months after Hurricane Sandy struck, Ovink was welcomed at the helm of a task force which formulated a plan to protect the American Northeast from rising sea levels.

Ovink was recently appointed special envoy for international water affairs by the Netherlands. Recently in Toronto, he explained what his new job entails, why he calls Miami the “new Atlantis” and how to befriend water.

It’s like an ambassador for water. Water crisis is the most pressing risk worldwide. World Economic Forum’s risk report this year listed water as the No. 1 risk. We know in the next decade, two to four billion people will be devastated either because of too much water or too little. Ninety per cent of all disasters worldwide are water related.

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We have to change or 40 per cent of the world will be devastated.

Netherlands has a long tradition of living with water. We have built not only a country, a physical structure, but a cultural structure and institutional capacity to deal with water. That is my mission: it isn’t about repair but preparedness. The Netherlands takes that responsibility seriously. It’s not that we can save the world but we can help inspire and inform how to do things differently.

To be fair, Netherlands has also made some mistakes, but learned from them. (Almost 2,000 people died in floods in the Netherlands in 1953; the country was hit hard in the 1990s, too.)

After the flooding of the 1990s, there was a rethink of our cultural approach: we are living with water in the Netherlands but what does that actually mean? Part of the question of too much water is connected to too little water . . . we always need water in our rivers.

In deltas, water always gets enough room . . . to meander, to change and to be flexible. We turned that aspect of how water works into an asset and that became the core behind Room for the River. It’s a program that is implemented in the whole delta in the Netherlands, with almost 40 projects. These are approaches where we make more room for the water. It meant, in some cases, that a famer had to leave because we needed room for the water. Dikes have been relocated farther from the shore and that has created additional space within the flood plain for the river during annual flooding.

We had to do it to safeguard the cities downstream.

In some cases, where farmers didn’t want to leave, we raised the land and built the farm on that higher land.

So the big lesson is collaboration.

Floating houses will not save the world, collaboration will.

It’s simple. If you build a little barrier, the water will move to your neighbour. If you don’t collaborate with your neighbour, you are either at war or you are fighting. You can also solve it together.

For both rural and urban areas, that means not walling off the water, but giving it room and flexibility when storms hit or floods come.

The Netherlands has water ingrained in its culture, acquired over centuries. Do you think the world can duplicate that?

We have no choice, we have to. But there isn’t a silver bullet. I always say don’t expect one-dimensional, fast solutions . . . focus and invest in long-term process. It is a change of culture and so a change of the heart, which is always harder than an engineering change, or (harder) than an investment decision. We have to change the way we go about water.

Adapting (for higher sea levels) doesn’t mean “fighting” the water but working with it. This change will take a generation, it won’t come overnight.

Sea-level rise, that thing you are an expert in, is a big part of the climate change conundrum. How do you talk to deniers, especially with regard to sea-level rise?

It isn’t hard, they are part of the group. I think it’s related more to power: the fossil fuel power, the money related to it, is preventing change. Look, in places like Bangladesh, Florida and Netherlands, you have to mitigate and adapt. And that is where climate deniers create problems when they prevent thoughtful discussion. Look at Florida . . . the state issued a brief that their staff could not talk about sea-level rise or climate change. . . . The risk to Miami is monumental. If you won’t talk about it, you won’t be able to deal with it.

I am not frustrated with deniers. There is always obstruction and progress. It’s like living with water — it can be a threat, it can be an asset. It doesn’t mean it becomes less threatening but you have found a way to deal with it. You will sometimes still get wet but it will be a good wet.

You recently said there is no city in worse shape than Miami. You called it the “new Atlantis.” Some people freaked out.

I’m not saying anything new. Research focusing on assets and investments at risk from sea-level rise and increase in water-related disasters shows us that Miami is at the top. Many coastal places are at risk but Miami has a lot to lose.

(National Geographic recently published research on the projected cost of an extreme weather event in 2050. With much infrastructure so close to sea level, Miami was number one on the list with a projected loss of $278 billion. It was followed by Guangzhou in China ($268 billion), and New York-Newark ($209 billion). Amsterdam was at number nine with $96 billion at risk.)

Yes, Amsterdam is on that list, too. But in the Netherlands, this risk comes with long-term planning and protection measures that take care of the risk. So there is a risk but under control. In Miami, there is no strategy, that makes it a risky place.

If you were Miami’s adviser, what would you tell the city to do?

People want simple answers, there are no simple answers. That is a problem I face all over the world.

OK, four things for Miami: you need a long-term comprehensive approach with short-term interventions on resiliency and safety. You need to focus on a process that is inclusive and collaborative . . . include communities, institutions, governments, businesses. You need to focus on new methods of financing, public and private. Fourth: I would say focus on institutional capacity. Build an enabling environment where governments, businesses, NGOs can actually help deliver the long-term resiliency the region needs. You can start now, like what we did with the Rebuild by Design in New York. Next to a comprehensive approach, innovation should be a leading aspect. It’s focused on economy, will create jobs, opportunity for investments.

If Florida can come up with a model that safeguards $278 billion, that is a business case and you can sell it to just everyone.

What about low-lying islands like Kiribati, Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands?

Building stuff isn’t the solution everywhere — sometimes we have to accept a loss. It’s possible we cannot save some islands. Therefore the world also has to focus on inclusivity: we are responsible worldwide to deal with it together. That means if people are at risk and have to flee, we have to find new homes for them.

You say “institutional capacity” a lot.

I do! Here is an example: We installed a delta committee after the disasters in 1953, but we also installed a committee without a disaster in 2007. That committee said that to safeguard the future for the next 100 years, we have to come with a comprehensive plan, with a commissioner who safeguards that plan and is not tied to politics.

Last fall, the Dutch parliament agreed to lengthen funding until 2050. For me, institutional capacity is showcased. If we can agree politically and societally that water is part of our culture, if we keep on investing, we can deal with water.

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